1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a method and apparatus for diagonal scan in a fixed direction and simplified context selection for parallel entropy coding of significance map of transform coefficients.
2. Description of the Related Art
In video coding standards, context modeling is a popular approach used in entropy coding to improve coding efficiency. Context modeling involves selecting a context which determines the probability used to encode binary symbols. The context selection is difficult to parallelize. It is particularly difficult at the decoder when there are too many factors that impact the selection, such as, values of other binary symbols affecting the context selection. However, such dependencies tend to provide better coding efficiency. Parallel processing is important for high performance, for example, for processing throughput, and for reducing power consumption, such as, reducing the frequency requirement or operational voltage.
Therefore, there is a need to improve parallel processing capabilities during entropy coding of transform information, while simultaneously maintaining high coding efficiency.